


Bury the Body

by Greenninjagal



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: All the authors knowledge of murder comes from TV shows, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Arson, Brains, Cannibalism, Casually threatening each other, Choking, DONT MURDER KIDS ITS BAD, Death, I can not stress the amount of killing, Killing people, Mentions of Suicide, Murder, Road Trips, Severed Heads, Stabbing, broken glass, romanticizing of Serial Killing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-05-18 18:47:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19340437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenninjagal/pseuds/Greenninjagal
Summary: To be honest the day had gone great. Exceeding so. He had gotten the promotion he had been after for the past year and received the nice raise that had come with the new position. He no longer had to sit in a tiny cubical and listen to Jeff from two cubicles over have phone sex with his secret girlfriend that his wife didn’t know a thing about. And, sure, the new workload was strenuous, but that made his nights out so much more entertaining, so much more fun.It was a science. A science that Logan had perfected at sixteen. The more stress he had, the more the bat felt right when it cracked against the skull of his latest victim.***Aka Logan is a serial killer and he's not the only one.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Totally 100% inspired by @/Sandersidesquotes on tumblr who had a bunch of very fun serial killer prompts I took for a joy ride. It was fun to write, but please be safe reading.
> 
> (beta-ed by Samismybae)

To be honest the day had gone great. Exceeding so. He had gotten the promotion he had been after for the past year and received the nice raise that had come with the new position. He no longer had to sit in a tiny cubical and listen to Jeff from two cubicles over have phone sex with his secret girlfriend that his wife didn’t know a thing about. And, sure, the new workload was strenuous, but that made his nights out so much more entertaining, so much more fun.

It was a science. A science that Logan had perfected at sixteen. The more stress he had, the more the bat felt right when it _cracked_ against the skull of his latest victim.

Logan had never been great at baseball, but people had stopped teasing him about it long ago. They had other things to worry about, like the funeral for the captain of the baseball team who passed away suddenly when his shed caught fire while he was out back underage drinking.

In the darkness, his victim when down heavy without even a chance to scream. Not that there wouldn’t be more time for that later. He had chosen her mostly at random from the bar, although the fact that she had been alone and her phone had died had been huge factors. Logan didn’t know if she was pretty or not, but he thought the red splatter on the edge of his metal bat looked a bit like art in the dull light.

Really she should have called an uber hours ago, should have brought a charger, should have dyed her hair brown and worn less make up. She looked too much like one of his sister’s Barbies.

Logan rubbed one of his gloved hands over the splotch of blood on his bat and wondered if she’d scream the way he always imagined the dolls did when he turned them into metal mounds of plastics. Logan felt his stomach flutter, the edges of his lips twitch into a smile at the idea of the lighter fluid in his jacket pocket, at the idea of the matches and the smell of smoke spiraling into the midnight sky.

Personally, Logan thought that arson was a rather beautiful way to die. She should be honored. It was a science, a specific ratio of gas to the victim, a detailed design that would swallow an entire building so completely without collapsing too quickly. She should be thrilled that Logan had deemed her the next one to go floating up to sky with his smoke.

“Oh, that’s not very nice!” A voice said some nearby.

Logan stilled.

He had been lingering in this alley for an hour, waiting for his victim to come out. He knew there was no one else here. So where had the voice come from? And why did it sound so happy?

Logan twitched to look at the mouth of alley where a figure was standing dressed in cargo shorts and a blue polo. He had a cardigan wrapped around his shoulders, and loafers on his feet. If he hadn’t looked so happy, Logan would have assumed he was a Dad running around after his kids.

If it hadn’t been nearing one in the morning, Logan would have assumed he was just a poor civilian in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Not nice at all, kiddo!” The man said. “Don’t you know that could cause brain damage?”

“Who are you?”

“And she already has so many other problems with her brain.” The other strolled forward with a hop in his step, completely ignore Logan’s question, “I’m going to have to ask you to step away from her now, kiddo!”

Logan was not sure who this man was, or why he found the happy tone so annoying. It grated on his nerves. Logan held the bat out at him. “Stop,” He commanded.

The man took three more steps and hovered just outside the range of Logan’s swing.  Logan was sure if either of them leaned more than five inches they’d both explode. The part of him he kept buried deep inside _sang_.

 The smog of the city blocked out most of the moonlight, but Logan had no issue making out the whites of his teeth, the forced edges of his smile that only looked natural at first glance. At this close Logan could make out how robotic and unnatural it is, how it didn’t meet his eyes, how the man before him was so fake he could have been one of the dolls Logan melted as a kid.

Logan’s lips twitched. Could this man keep up that stupid fake voice while he burned like one too?

“Kady Kay here has so many problems with her brain. Just like me!” the man said, “I’m gonna fix them all for her!”

Logan didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t care either.

Until the voice behind him spoke up. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Pat.”

Logan swirled at the sound, so close, so surprising. His victim was on the ground, and right next to her was another figure, dressed all in black, with an oversized hoodie that made him look like a child. He had a marker out, holding the limp left arm of the victim and drawing neat dotted lines at the intersection between her humerus and her radius and ulnar. The second man looks up at him, a shy smile on his face, a guilty smile, like a kid who was found with his hand in his cookie jar.

In the next second there was a skittering on the asphalt behind him. Logan remembered just a second too late that the other man had still been there, that he hadn’t been normal, that there had been a bloodlust in those twinkling eyes that Logan was so familiar with from all the times he had looked in the mirror before he left his house in the morning.

He threw an arm up just as the knife came jabbing at him. The motion was fluid and surgical, and it would have severed Logan’s carotid artery if it hadn’t plunged straight into his forearm.

The man smiled. “Oh?”

“He’s fast.” The other said.

Logan blinked at the blade protruding from his arm mere inches from his face. There was blood on it too, blood dripping down the metal edge and dotting the asphalt at their feet. He twisted his hold on his bat, so that it was easier to adjust his glasses.

“Oh, kiddo,” The man with the fake smile said, “There’s something wrong with your brain too!”

“Congenital Analgesia,” Logan responded.

“You can’t feel pain?” The other said. Logan thought he sounded disappointed.

“Precisely,” Logan said and then he folded his arm inward and broke the handle from the smiling man’s grip and flexed his fingers. Half of them don’t move. Something was severed, but Logan wasn’t worried yet.

“Kay feels pain.” The other said quietly.

“I want to make her smile!” The smiling man said. His hands danced in the air revealing more tiny knifes between his fingers, and slicing fluid motions in the air.

The other shrugged. “I just like taking things apart.”

“What makes you think I will allow you to take my victim?” Logan asked them.

They shared a look and then they give him a twin smiles: One small and shy like a kid who understood a joke an adult did not, the other bright and blinding and completely fake. Logan guessed they were brothers from the way their heads tilt, their curly hair twists into their eyes, and their mouths open at the same time.

“Because we called dibs!”

“How childish,” Logan sniffed. “I hit her first.”

“We’ve been watching her for weeks.” The man in the hoodie countered.

“And premeditated murder doesn’t make it to court unless you actually attempt to kill someone. What is your point?”

The other man’s smile wilted slightly, “Can’t we just….share?”

Logan and the other shot him withering looks, “No!”

“Please V? Pretty please! Please, Please, Please?!” The man said, “I want to see this man smile too!”

“I don’t!”

Logan was about to cut in when another noise cuts through the alley. The sound of trash bins being pushed over, and someone running, several screams.

“HELP!”

Logan found himself drawn to the next person throwing themselves down the narrow venue. A male, a teenager. In the dull light of the night, Logan could see the way he was stumbling in a panic and screaming for help, holding his side and his neck with his arms and the bubbling shining red that was spewing from between his fingertips.

“HELP!” The man yelled, “He’s right behind me! He’s got—”

Logan blinked and there was a long metal blade protruding from the man’s chest. The man gurgled, blood shot out of his mouth and then his eyes rolled back. 

The body dropped to the ground with a wet _splat_ and a new figure stepped into the limelight: He was dressed head to toe in white, a suit tailored to fit him perfectly. It would have looked flattering if it weren’t for the red wine hand prints and splotches and smears all over it. He held a katana in one hand and a red rag in the other.

“Twenty Seven!” He sang to them, with a dazzling gleam in his brown eyes that made them look like rubies. His hair was gelled back, and glitter dusted his cheeks just enough to make him look other worldly, “Hi! Give me just a moment and Emo Nightmare there can be Twenty Eight!”

 “Hi!” the man with the fake smile said, “I like your clothes! They’re so pretty!”

“Why thank you, Twenty Nine!”

The man laughed, “I’d hate to make you sad there kiddo, but we can’t stay to play! Kady Kay needs to smile too! Come on, Virge!”

“Pat,” the other said, his marker jabbed at the man in white and red, “I want to take him apart.”

“Oh dear,” The man in all white said, “You’re going to mess up my count, Batboy.”

Logan flexed his stabbed arm again. The blood was making his gloves slippery. No doubt his blood was all over this crime scene. Most likely he was going to have to disappear in the night, pretend to be one of the several people to have gone missing in the past months. Oh what a shame, he had liked that promotion and the new money and all the gasoline he could have bought.

He waved his bat slightly, eyed his victim on the ground once more and wished that he had more time to hear her scream and watch the flames to consume her in the warmest hug this life could give her. Then he bolted from the alley while the others are distracted, escaping into the city he knows so well.

What a shame. What a waste.

Maybe one day he’ll see the others again, and he’ll melt them all too.

****

He didn’t leave the city. Not that night or the next.

He bought three stuffed animals from a toy store and lit them on fire on his fire escape. It wasn’t as fun, didn’t relieve as much stress as it should have. There wasn’t any screaming, wasn’t enough smoke, wasn’t the smell of burning flesh tickling his nose. He poured a pitcher of water on the mess and left it on the metal bars.

No police came to his door. And aside from a twenty seven victim murder spree by an unknown killer, there was no news that suggested he was going to have a difficult time. However, there was also no news about the three other killers he had seen.

The following day he took his smoke break twenty minutes earlier than normal. His arm was wrapped and in a sling and his coworkers were being extra nice to him after he told them he had been in an unfortunate mugging. Still it was rather annoying to see that three of his fingers refused to curl and instead hung off his palm completely useless.

He lit a cigarette, but didn’t bring it near his mouth. He didn’t smoke. Not like the others did. Instead he stood on the roof—the designated smoking area of the bank he worked at—and held the lit cigarette between his thumb and index finger while he stares at the flame of his lighter without any interruptions.

If he thought any of his coworkers had half a brain he would have been more careful about being caught so openly aiding his obsession. But as it stood no one in the entire city had put together that stiff, unmovable Logan Ackroyd was the same man who set fire to several warehouses and on one occasion a car in a deserted parking garage.

(That one hadn’t been fun. The flames had hit the gas tank too quickly. The man—or had it been a woman? He didn’t remember anymore—hadn’t had time to scream before they had disappeared into the warm embrace.)

Logan could feel the heat when he brought the light close to his face. It was the closest he got to physical pain.

The door behind him screeched open and Logan extinguished the flame with an irritated huff. He didn’t have to turn around to know who it was, and honestly it didn’t matter either. None of his coworkers knew how to do their jobs. It made sense that he wouldn’t be able to get more than five minutes of peace.

“Logan? Logan buddy you up here?”

“What do you need Jeff?” Logan coldly asked without turning around.

“There you are! You usually don’t take your smoke break for another twenty minutes and I was just—”

“Is there a point your disturbing me?” Logan cut him off. His eyes glared at the ash that floated off the each of his cigarette and dissipated into the wind so freely. The smoke tickled his nose comfortingly.

“There’s a couple guys here who need a withdraw—”

“The tellers are quite adequate at their jobs, Jeff.”

“They want $12,000. Per regulations we need to report any transaction over $10,000. And Janice is with someone right now so she can’t take them, and I was hoping that you would confirm their request and—”

“If you want me to do your paperwork, just say so, Jeffery.” Logan said, “I will happily do it, because that will mean it gets done correctly and I will not have to go back and fix your mistakes later.” Logan stubbed out his cigarette, somewhat regretfully, and then stormed past Jeff from two cubicles over to handle the clients.

The clients were twins, a surgeon and a therapist that were big named into those fields. Logan took one look at them and nearly slammed the brand new door of his brand new office closed.

“Oh, hi, there kiddo!” The man with the fake smile said brightly, “You look familiar. Have we met?”

“I understand you want to make a withdraw.” Logan said coldly as he sat down at his desk.

The two men from three days ago were sitting in the chairs opposite of him, a desk between them, but Logan was not stupid enough to think that provided any type of hinderance to either of them. As it stood, the smiling man was bouncing in his seat beaming, and Logan could see flecks of water dried on his glasses from a frivolous cleaning recently. The other was still wearing that swamped hoodie curled into the seat like he might be able to escape the light by folding in on himself. There was gauze taped to his forehead all the way to his left eye. He was silent, and although Logan couldn’t quite tell if the tense of his shoulders was from anger or just general childlike misery.

“Oh yes sir!” The bouncing man said, “We’re going on a trip!”

“Per regulations I must ask where,” Logan said.

“All over! But mostly to the Midwest!”

Desert area, Logan noted offhandedly. He glanced between them imagining the flat plain desert miles away from civilization and a bonfire so large a satellite might be able to pick it up. He imagined both of the others at the center of it, with their voices drowned out by the crackling of the unforgiving fire.

“I’ve always wanted to see the other side of the country! It’s so vast and big! Oh maybe we’ll get to see some Aliens!”

“Excellent plan,” Logan said distastefully, and even he didn’t know why it sounded so sour coming out of his mouth, “Now I need you to sign—”

“I’m going to bury a body.”

Logan stilled at the sound of the other’s voice.

The smiling man laughed. “Virgil you can’t just say that!”

“What’s he gonna do, Pat? Call the police?” The other snarled at his brother and then stared at Logan directly in the eyes, “We’re going to the desert and I’m gonna bury the body of a man I’m gonna take apart limb from limb.”

Logan found it rather hard to look away. He had no difficulty believing the other when he spoke. He tapped a pen in his right hand twice on his desk. “I wish you the best of luck, Mr. Sanders. Now please sign here and I will return with your money.”

“You should come with us!” The smiling man said. “It would be so much more fun than being in this stuffy office all day! We could go on all sorts of adventures! Oh! I can show you how to smile!”

He hummed dreamily leaning forward on Logan’s desk. The pastel of his sweater was bleached at the sleeves, like someone had worked very hard to get a dark color off of it. Logan felt his lighter in his pocket grow heavy—his brain was off doing math to determine how long it would take to turn that sweater and the man in it to dust before he could stop himself.

Two to three hours for that plastic smile to melt off his face, for his soft pale skin to turn to crusted ash, for Logan to figure out if he’d scream just like those dolls from so long ago. His fingers itched as he waited for the twins to finish signing the forms he provided.

“You clean up nice.” The man in the hoodie said. “Would you wear that to your funeral?”

“12,000 American Dollars, Mr. Sanders.” Logan handed him the money. “Spend it wisely.”

“Have you ever been on a train?” He asked, without counting the stack of bills Logan had handed him.

Logan replaced the cap on his fountain pen and gently placed them back in the cup next to his name plaque. “I have not.”

They gave him those smiles again, the ones that made him feel like they were vaguely teasing him. Bright and bashful, fake and deceiving: but it didn’t reach their frigid eyes. Logan imagined they were made of ice.

Ice melted so very nicely now, didn’t it?

“Goodbye, Logie!” The smiling man sang as his brother shoved him out the door.

Logan crinkled the papers in his hand until the two signatures were barely recognizable. He glared at it hard enough that it might have caught on fire had it been any other reality.

“I’m going on my smoke break,” He yelled to Jeff from two cubicles over and spent the rest of the work day on the roof holding his pocket lighter right next to his temple and watching the flames in the reflection of his glasses.

***

Logan found out he had a total of forty three days of paid vacation that his management was all too willing to give him.

“Go live a little!” They told him. “You’re still young!”

They didn't notice how he pulled the two credit records right before he checked out for the day. The kind lady on the phone was all too happy to tell him all about the reserved seats he had once she had confirmed his basic information. 

“Bring me back a souvenir,” His sister said on the phone. “And it can’t be another ashtray. I don’t even smoke!”

Logan lit the jacket she got him for Christmas last year on fire and watched it burn until the night sky began to light again. The heat pricked at his unmoving fingers the sensation of something licking him, of something being not-right.

He did not put it out before he left.

***

He knocked on the door to the private sitting room. The shifting of the carriage had taken some getting used to, but he had always adapted to things so well. His mother had blamed the inability to feel pain, but she wasn’t exactly the smartest person he had ever come across. She wanted him to do more chores and less burning ants with his magnifying glass.

Even her screams got boring after the first hour.

“Might I join you?” Logan asked when the door slid open.

“The sign says private for a reason, Teach.” A voice said from inside. Logan raised an eyebrow at the man, at his plain white t-shirt and jeans that still have the tag on it. He was lounging on a full booth seat, with black boots sprinkling dirt on the other seats, and a phone in one hand. Even without that katana in his hands, he was easily recognizable.

Logan glanced at the twins who sit across from him, “I was under the impression you killed him?”

“Pat made me put him back together.” The man in the hoodie said, rather regretfully. He blew on his fingertips, crinkled his nose, and then went back to using his butterfly knife to scrap the purple nail polish off his nails.

“As if Johnny Depressing there could kill someone as amazing as me!” The other man scoffed.

“Give it four days, Princey.” He retorted, “The only reason I haven’t taken you apart yet is because its easier to transport you alive.”

The carriage filled with a booming laughter, “It’s going to be so much fun killing you, Twenty Eight!”

The smiling man held out his arms for Logan, like an offer of a hug if it hadn’t been for the knives in both of his hands. The toothy grin was too sharp to be flattering.

“I’m glad you came, Logie!” He sang. “I can’t wait to see you smile just like I made Kady Kay smile!”

Logan dropped his bag--a duffel that held a bottle of lighter fluid, a box of matches and three outfits— on top of the man’s black boots. ("Hey! Watch it!") His lips twitched.

“I do believe that you’ll try.” Logan told the smiling man. “However it will be difficult when you’re little more than a charred corpse in the middle of the desert.”

He settled on the seat next to the other serial killers, pulled out his phone, and began searching for an ashtray to send back to home to his sister.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The smiling man cooed at the sight of his brother being strangled, that smile pointed and full of teeth. He pressed his hands on his rounded cheeks grinning, always grinning, “Aw, Virge! Can you see his smile? It’s so pretty!”
> 
> ***  
> aka a problem becomes apparent and the smiling man offers a dangerous solution.

They ran into a problem in the first four hours of the trip. Multiple problems, actually.

The first of which began in the initial turn of the train carriage just barely outside of the city Logan had haunted for so long. Although, since he wasn’t sitting next to the window, it was easy enough to see around the white T-shirt murderer when the other was laying on the seat and scrolling through his phone so casually. Logan watched from the corner of his eyes as the city faded to suburbs and then to rolling hills and highways filled with bumper to bumper traffic. The smiling man and his hooded brother chatted on endlessly about who they wanted to kill next, about how exactly one of them was going to cut them open, about the rumors of a cannibal running around the western coast, about what the afterlife was probably like, about nothing at all.

Then the train had carried them around a long bend. Logan blinked.

And the man in the hoodie was in a choke hold in the middle of their private little carriage, his face turning red, and a dazzling gleam of a smile behind his ear as the man in white laughed.

Logan watched with boredom as they struggled, pulling his legs onto the seat when their mess of limbs stumbled in the five feet of space they had. The man in white’s phone hit the ground, and cracked under the pressure of his own heel. The man in the hoodie clawed his fingers over the powerful hands that were choking him, his own knife having dropped to the seat cushion when the attack began.

The smiling man cooed at the sight of his brother being strangled, that smile pointed and full of teeth. He pressed his hands on his rounded cheeks grinning, always grinning, “Aw, Virge! Can you see his smile? It’s so pretty!”

Logan was not surprised when the other did not respond. His eyes were wide, red at the edges, his tongue twitching in his throat whenever he tried to take a breath that was not coming. There was a coldness to the scene that Logan found disappointing: a coldness of such an empty overpowered death. The man probably didn’t even need both hands to choke the life from the hooded victim—the size of his one palm was enough to wrap around the throat and crush the vocals.

Why couldn’t any of them see how distant this type of death was? Why would they prefer it to the embrace of flames?

Logan was about to turn back to his phone when a shadow passed over the carriage.

A shadow and a fanged smirk from the hoodie serial killer. 

He jumped, kicked his feet off the seat, and then launched himself backward to the floor, with his attacker underneath him. The motion was fluid and quick and Logan tutted at the way the killer in white slammed his head into the edge of the booth seat they had been sharing. 

The grip loosened.

The hooded victim coughed precious air into his lungs. His fingers carted the carpeted flooring until he found his knife again. He didn’t use it, but instead twisted back around into his attacker with his free hand and jabbed into the depression of the other’s armpit.

“Aw, it’s over so soon,” The man with the fake smile said sorrowfully.

Logan watched as the man in white recoiled at the strike, drawing his body in on itself, despite the fact that his prey was inches away from him. He gasped in pain—whatever feeling normal people classified as physical pain, and his entire arm fell limp to the floor.

“V!” the smiling man moaned, “You made him upset! Make him smile again! Please?” 

“Fuck…you…” the hooded man coughed out and leaned back on against the seat right against his brother’s swinging legs.

“Language!”

The man in the hoodie points his knife at the man who had attacked him, his eyes were cold as steel, unbreakable and frigid with deadly intention. “I’m gonna… disassemble you, Princey. And stuff you… back in the toy box you came out of!”

The other laughed again, curling in on his chest, Logan thought he saw him spit out a bit of blood. “They’re never going to forget how I killed you, Twenty Eight! Never!” 

When Logan left for his smoke break nearly an hour and a half later, both of them had settled back onto their respective seats. The smiling man was watching the scenery pass by them, humming a catchy pop tune, the man in white had complained about the cracked screen on his phone for twenty minutes, and the man in the hoodie had retreated into a ball in the corner, ever so subtly rubbing the edges of his overgrown sleeves over the bruises on his neck.

The designated smoking area was in the middle of the train on a platform car with peeling red and yellow painted fencing that kept people from falling off. Logan was not surprised to see he was alone.

The clouds had begun to darken and the rumbling of thunder could be heard over the screeching of the wheels on the rails. A cool breeze divided the warm air of the day and carried the ashes of his cigarette from the post he was leaning against. His lighter danced between his fingers, flicking on and off, close and near, and watching the flame with a close intensity. Perhaps too close. Should any other passengers have trespassed into his sacred space and if they were from his little city, they might have put two and two together.

Or maybe Logan was giving too much credit to the normal people he walked among. Logan smelt like fire, like ashes, like death, and yet none of them had picked up on it.

Logan twisted the flame again; the warmth brushed his fingertips. Logan had long since run out of words that could possibly describe what it felt like: like pressure where there was nothing, like heat, like something his mother had told him so many times not to do,  _ don’t do it Logan! Stop it! Logan!  _

He had cabinets of melted candles and drawers of fireworks. Lighter fluid had covered every surface in his apartment at least once in the time he had been there. Matches always burned to his finger tips and washed down the drain on nights where he couldn’t go outside. The fire detector had been deactivated for years.

He spent too long staring at the flames. But how could he not stare? They were gorgeous, dancing idles. So fleeting, so rare, so powerful. They smelled so sickly sweet, so bitter and callous and unforgiving. It burned and burned and burned and Logan was its faithful observer, its devoted worshiper,  a quiet architect.

Logan took a deep breath, filling his nostrils with the blistery smell of his smoke. 

His lungs refused to cooperate.

Logan barely had time to yell before he felt the pressure of something thin, of something strong and unassuming and wrapping around his neck yanking him backwards. Logan felt the pressure of it, felt the bursting of his eardrums and the staggering weight of someone behind him. He didn’t—couldn’t feel the pain. 

He could feel the rush of blood down his neck where the wire was so close to slicing his throat like a slab of wet clay.

“Smile, Logie!” A cheerful tone hummed. Logan felt the vibrations down his back. “Smile for me!”

Logan’s lighter tumbled from his hand—or rather from the two working fingers he had been holding it with—and fell into the open air. The flames disappeared. Icy coldness flooded Logan’s veins like snakes striking at his rapidly beating heart. 

He rammed the smoldering edge of his cigarette into the mass of flesh behind him and twisted. There was a yelp—a scream followed by haunting laughter. The wire loosened. Logan fell forward. His attacker fell back.

“Owww! Logie! That wasn’t nice at all!” The smiling man said between hiccups of pain. Logan thought he saw tears behind those round glasses of his, but to be honest he was more concerned with the sticky fluid dribbling down his neck. His fingers were dyed red, dyed the color of wine, it was warm and wet at the same time. 

The smiling man twisted the handles of his wire—a clay cutter Logan thought distantly—and showed off the whites of his teeth. The rounded burn was on his side, where his pastel sweater had ridden up and left his pale skin exposed. Logan thought the mark looked gorgeous: angry and blistered and just a few seconds short of never coming off of him.

Logan rolled the stick in his hand, and his tongue flicked between his teeth, wondering what the rest of that soft pale skin would look like covered in those burns, smelling like the smoke, feeling like a braille story book that Logan got to write himself. The scream had been too short, too sudden, but Logan found his stomach fluttering at it. 

Oh, it was a promise. A promise that he could get more from the man in front of him with such a convenient little thing.

The man’s eyes danced over Logan, cold and cutting and so excited. Logan’s lips twitched.

“It’s no fair that you don’t feel pain!” The man said.

“And you sneaking up behind me with wire was fair?” Logan countered.

“You looked so sad being here all alone!”

“Perhaps I prefer the loneliness.”

The smile crinkled. Logan could hear the way the other’s teeth grinded together, the way his saliva cracked and bubbled when it was pressured by the expanse of the face muscles to hold the strenuous crescent.

“No one ever prefers the loneliness, kiddo!”

It sounded like a fact. Like a threat.

Logan raised his cigarette between them. The ashes on the edge of it valiantly attempted to keep embers glowing and finish the job it had been sent to do.

The door at the end of the car swung, accompanied by the obnoxious laughter of someone who couldn’t read a room. It was loud, earth shatteringly so. The voices that came suddenly, the squeal of wheels on the rails, the whistling of the wind through the windows, and the thunder in the distance.

Logan froze, his cigarette hummed between his fingers, sticky blood dripped down his neck staining the collar of the shirt he had been wearing. 

He saw the twisted faces of the other passengers like staring in a fun house mirror. Eyes widening, mouths gaping, half a scream on their lips, a cellphone flashing and sirens going off. The trip would be over, the prospect of burning the flesh gone in a puff of smoke because of a poor couple in a wrong time, wrong place scenario.

“Aw Logie!” 

Then the smiling man was pressed up against him. Their glasses clinking when their faces collided, when his hands deceptively cupping his jaw line and pushing them both out of the limelight. The man’s eyes closed but Logan’s stayed so wide open. He could make out every single freckle on the other’s face. Logan felt the breath on his skin, then the precarious chapped lips on his own. 

It was a parody of a kiss, of something sweet and romantic. The man’s hands were too rough, the blisters on his palms tore at the skin around the slice through Logan’s neck, his teeth bared and bit down on Logan’s lip like a ravenous beast; his body was heavy and controlling and somehow not at all warm.

“Hey, buddy! Get a room!”

Logan stared at the man in front of him, at the man kissing him, at the man who was trying to kill him. The fluttering in his chest spread like a plague, Logan knew, because there was simply no other reason that his hand snaked around the other’s waist and held him in place.

Neither of them moved until the door to the other end of the car closed. 

Then Logan stubbed the remaining embers of his cigarette into the smiling man’s collarbone. His grin curled momentarily into a snarl and the other man launches himself away from Logan, away from the blood, and the smoke, and Logan let him tumble to the floor.

“This isn’t fun anymore,” The other said petulantly. “Not fun at all!”

He gave Logan a chilling smile, too much teeth, too wide, too white. Then he turned around and left Logan in the room with his bleeding neck, cigarette, lighter and pulsating bottom lip.

The scent of burned flesh was carried away by the open air of the train car and replaced with the smell of rain.

***

Their private compartment was still intact when Logan reentered it a partial rainstorm later. He had to wait for his neck to stop bleeding, and for several other people to clear out of the hall before he stole through the shifting compartments and found their carriage again. 

His lighter had taken a deep dive when the smiling man had attacked him, but Logan was thankful it hadn’t been lost forever. The silver box was scuffed and scratched and needed replacing but Logan preferred it to any others. It was the reliable one that had ignited the baseball captain’s backyard shed on fire, the car in the parking garage, the suburban house in the middle of the night after he had dismantled the fire alarms.

Not to mention it made such a beautiful light when he flicked a switch. It made such glorious instantaneous heat.

It seemed that neither of the twins had been killed or had managed to kill their other companion although it appeared that at least one more attempt had been made. The knife sticking out of the backrest and the carvings on the floor were hard to miss when he rolled the door back open.

“Oh, he’s back.” The man in white said. There was a nick on his forehead that wasn’t there before, and although it was shallow, the thin line was precise and swift. If Logan had to guess, he assumed that it had been the hooded man attempting to remove the smug look from his face.

“Hi, Logie!” The smiling man hummed again upon seeing him. “It’s been so long!”

“It’s been twenty minutes,” Logan corrected him. He reached out and plucked the knife from his seat. The black handle was sturdy but it light compared the steel blade on the other end. It was sharp, too—sharp enough that Logan knew not to hold it towards himself when all three of the people in the room with him were one train turn away from launching at him. 

“So long! I was so bored! V, tell him how bored I was!”

“Shut up,” His brother snapped, and buried himself in his jacket. “I’m mad at you.”

“What? Why!”

“You said I couldn’t carve Princey’s face off and make a Halloween mask out of it.”

“That’s because it would rot before Halloween came around, kiddo! We can’t have that!”

The other man grumbled something into the zipper of his jacket. His brother laughed at whatever it might have been. Rain danced on the window.

Logan had never been a fan of the rain. It made materials damp and changed his perfect gas-flesh ratio for his perfect kills. How many times in his teens had he cursed the sudden thunderstorms in his backyard when it stopped him from ritually destroying his sisters brand new textbooks and those stuffed animals from her boyfriend and her love letters that she never sent and hadn’t missed? 

Then the smiling man gave a great big gasp, something that stole all the oxygen from the compartment. His brother lifted his head ever so slightly, a withering glare in place, and the man in white shot to a sitting position with his phone as a weapon.

“Don’t  _ do  _ that, Twenty Nine!” The man scolded him, “I almost bashed your skull in right now!”

The man laughed that signature fake, signature  _ grating _ laugh. 

“What’s so wrong with that, kiddo?” He asked, “Is it wrong to kill someone as messed up as me?”

“You’re not messed up, Pat.” His brother said, “Stop saying you are.”

The man in white leaned forward, the heels of his boots clicking and leaving a few dirt crumbs on the polished floor next to the knife carvings. “I’d really hate to mess up my count, puffball.” There was a whiteness to him, to his words that reminded Logan of bleach. White and watery and dangerous to get too close for too long. 

The look in his eyes was clinical: all the warmth bleached out and left this mockery of a shell in its place. 

The smiling man clapped his hands. “There might be something wrong with your brain too!”

His brother batted him with his sleeve, “No! He’s mine!”

“We can share!”

“No, we can’t! I don’t want you playing with his brain! You always drop them!”

The smile widened. Logan could see his tongue flicking between his teeth. 

“Sorry Vee-Vee! I just love the sound they make when they hit the floor.”

“Did you have a reason for such an atrocious gasp, or were you merely attempting to provoke me into lighting you on fire right now?” Logan asked. The threat was hollow and empty, but only because a good fire in such a confined space would provide more than a few problems. The first of which was there was no distance to watch from, the second being the train was bound to stop the moment they realized there were open flames although he had never gotten a chance to set an actual train on fire—

Logan felt the lighter in his pocket grow heavy again.

Would it burn slowly? How long would it take? How many would it take into its ruby embrace? How much--?

“We should play a game!” The smiling man said.

Logan’s thoughts stuttered to a pause, unlike the train that was chugging allow at a steady pace. “A game?” 

It appeared that the comment had acquired the attention of the others as well. His brother brought his knees up to his chest and wrapped his hands around his legs. (Despite the hoodie, Logan could make out the purple and blue bruises around his neck from not too long ago. He absently poked the cut on his neck, and reached for his bag—surely, he had something to cover up his own injuries, correct?)

The man in white plopped his head into his hand and studied the smile on the other’s face. “I do like games.” He tapped his manicured fingers on his phone, emphasizing the cracks on the black screen. “I’ll allow it.”

The man in the hoodie shoot him a dark, annoyed glare, as if he was just barely holding back snap that would derail the conversation.

The smiling man clapped, “I love games, too! It will be so much fun! You’ll all be smiling at the end of it!”

“Pat—” His brother started but stopped himself quickly when the smiling man shoved a hand in his face.

“Trust me V!” He giggled. Logan caught sight of the puckered cigarette burn on the nap of his neck when his arms flailed. “It’ll make everything so much more fun!”

“What is the game?” Logan asked, if only to keep them on track.

“Well I was thinking that it’s so hard to—” He stopped to draw a line across his neck and stick his tongue out. There were tears in his eyes from how wide he was grinning that made the entire scenario more lighthearted than it should have been. Logan’s neck pulsed as he threaded through his bag for a scarf or something to cover the murder attempt. “—each other, so I was thinking we could make up rules we have to follow every day! If we don’t follow the rules, then the others get to kill us, no exceptions!”

Lightning shattered the sky behind him, casting him in an ethereal glow for a fraction of a second. Rain pounded at the window, much harder than from when Logan had been walking back from the smoking car.

“What kind of rules?” Logan demanded, “Who gets to decide them? Who gets to enforce them?”

“We would!” The man exclaimed pointed at all of them. “And the rules could be anything! Like no petting dogs in this state, no drinking water—Oh! What if it was no sneezing! Anyone who sneezed we could kill!”

“But who gets to kill them?” The man in white said. “If I don’t get to be the one to kill Robert Downer, Jr, then I will lose it.”

“Lose what?” The boy in the hoodie asked, “It can’t be your brain, because you don’t have one of those.”

The man in the white reached out one of his hands and it had the other man scrambling away. Logan ignored them in favor of analyzing the smiling face in front of him. The longer he spent looking at him, the more Logan was sure the man’s skin was made of plastic: even the freckles seemed painted on perfectly symmetrical on both halves of his face. His toothy grin could have been childish, but Logan doubt either of them could be judges of that. Actually, he doubted any of them in the private carriage had enough of a childhood to know what “childish” looked like.

“I guess the person who chose the rule for the day will get to make them smile!” The smiling man said.

“And what if the rule maker was the rule breaker?”

The man looked less certain, his smile turning thoughtful as he debated the question. “I guess they’ll have to kill themselves, right?” He laughed again.

“Okay,” Logan found himself saying. “I’ll play.”

He watched the stars form in the other’s eyes, and for a second Logan had difficulty identifying where the fake smile started and a genuine one appeared. For someone who looked like a doll, he was much louder than them when he squealed.

“Really, Logie? You will!”

“It would be beneficial to me,” Logan said, “Assuming that while we are playing no other attempts of assassination will be allowed. I do not have the time to scrub the blood from all of the clothes I own.” He pinched his glasses, “Also, I would like to go first.”

“What if I don’t want to play this game?” The hooded man said, “It sounds dumb.”

“You’re just afraid of losing.” The man in white said.

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“I’m not! It is stupid! Just like your face.”

“My face is the most handsome thing you’ll ever have the honor of looking at, Foundation Freak.” The man in white shot back. “And if its so stupid, then you shouldn’t have a problem winning until it’s my turn?”

“Fine!” The man in the hoodie scowled and dragged his hood tighter over his head, “Fine, I’ll play!”

Logan turned ever so slightly to look at the man next to him, “Neither of you will be attempting to go first?”

“No,” The man said with an expression that was sharper than the knife Logan had in his hand. For the first time Logan wondered if perhaps there was something else going on in his head beside an incessant urge to kill (people, things, time).

“It’s all yours Logie-bear!” The smiling man said. 

Thunder rumbled over the sound of the train tracks.

“And whatever I say will last until when exactly?” Logan asked.

The man in white turned around his phone. Between the cracks in the glass, the time printed out just past six in the afternoon. “A full twenty-four hours, Calculator Watch.” His smug smirk haunted the dull lighting. “Choose wisely.”

As if Logan had ever done anything differently.

“My rule is this,” Logan said, enunciating each word, “For the next twenty-four hours we must refer to each other by our actual legal names.” 

“Our…legal names?” The man in the hoodie echoed as if he had never heard the term before. “Like…our real names? I can’t call Princey, “Princey”, anymore?”

“Ah!” The man in white said jumping to his feet and causing the carriage to shake, “That’s a rule break! I get to kill you now—”

“We haven’t started yet, dumbass!” The man argued. “And if we had, Logan would get to kill me. Not you!” He kicked a foot out at the other’s knee. 

The man yelped and stumbled backwards, with a slew of curses. “Of course we’ve started, Twenty eight—fuck!” 

“You broke the rules too!”

“Shut up!”

“You shut up!”

Logan looked to the smiling man.

Said smiling man was tapping his chin, with a clever sort of smile. “Well this is fun,” He said softly, perhaps seriously. “You aren’t even going to start a little easy are you, Logan?”

The name sounded strange coming off his lips. Like he had pulled the water from the air and frozen it in a single breath. The fluttering in his stomach came back, as memorable as an atomic bomb in his chest. Dangerous and deadly and something to be avoided at all costs and yet Logan found himself wishing it would stay.

“Why would I?” He responded. He turned to the other two in the compartment. “The game will start now, if you both are finished arguing.”

“But it’s not fair!” The man in the hoodie huffed. “No one knows his name! We only know your name because we saw you at your job! How are we supposed to talk about—about him if we don’t know how to talk about--.”

“My name is Roman Prince.” The man in white cut in. “You may refer to me as Roman.”

It was strange, Logan thought. For him to give up an advantage like that. Surely it would be better for the others if they didn’t know his name at all. But Logan detected something coming from him, something about his aura that darkened the moment that the hooded man had opened his mouth to complain.

“Aw shucks, kid—Roman,” The smiling man stuttered, “That was really nice of you! I’m Patton Sanders! And this is my brother Virgil!”

Logan finally found what he was looking for in his bag: the turtleneck that he had packed should the option of a late night in another city come about. It would at least be enough to cover the slice on his throat from questioning glances.

“What about you?” The man in white, the regal Roman Prince, asked Logan.

The weight of the knife in his other hand was heavy, the pressure of it sitting on his fingertips somewhere between too cold and too hot. Logan recognized the style of it: the hilt matched the one he had left in his kitchen strainer after he pulled it from his arm and had threaded the gaping wound closed on both sides.

He was certain the amount of blood he had lost between these few days wasn’t as healthy as possible. The headache, too, wasn’t the best. And the dryness of his mouth.

If Logan was smart he’d bid them all goodbye at the next stop and head on his merry way. Maybe he’d find a naïve girl who needed a ride home and send her up in smoke. But Logan did not like missing out on things, especially not the chance to burn the plastic smiling man across from him again, to hear those pleas, and that delicious, desperate scream of his. If he left now, he’d never get to see what happens next.

Wouldn’t that just be awful?

“Logan Ackroyd,” Logan said, “I wonder if you’ll be able to remember it.”

Lightning cracked down on the countryside, washing the windows with light and rain pellets and the promise of murder.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you afraid of what we might find in your bag?” Roman asked grabbing the handles and giving it a tug.
> 
> “I never said it was mine.”
> 
> The bag rolled off the rack and thawpped to the ground taking Roman’s arm with it. It hit the ground with a crash, that sounded suspiciously not like any bag of clothes Logan had ever heard before. Something liquid started leaking from the bottom of the bag, pooling on the floor in colorless puddles.
> 
> Roman looked up at the twins, and pointed at the bag, “What is that?”  
> ***  
> aka the game kicks off with a crash and a bang and a dead body

As it turns out, his companions did not have a problem remembering their names. It was much like once they had learned the names each had been scribbled down in a dictionary, preserved and the page tabbed, so they might never lose it.

So, no, the problem wasn't remembering the names of the people they were sitting with.

Logan repeated them like a mantra in his head: the smiling man, Patton, Patton Sanders, Patton like plastic, fake, meltable, plastic Patton Sanders; the hooded man, Virgil, Virgil Sanders, Virgil like vigilant, like vagrant, like vexing Virgil Sanders; the man in white and red was Roman Prince, Regal, Royal, ridiculous Roman.

It wasn’t a problem remembering their names.

 It was a problem remembering to  _ use  _ the names. The smiling man in particular just had an even better affinity for word play. The man in white slung insults like second nature, and the hooded man let scathing remarks choke out of his throat.

Which wouldn’t have been a problem at all-- Logan would have collected each of their souls in turn, dragging them to some place deserted and drowning them in gasoline, twisting and twirling lines with the flammable liquid and then dropping a single spark into the barest edges. He needed to buy a stopwatch, just to prove his theory that Virgil would be the one to scream first. Logan would have made the most beautiful art out of all of them.

If he could remember to use their real names just slightly better than the rest of them.

“Fine,” Logan snarled at Peppy Patton’s face, spitting the word with all the malice he could muster when the other had him pinned to the floor and their respective strengths were the only things keeping a body from being discovered by the next train attendant who walked by. Logan could see the flecks of his spit splatter on the other’s glasses, could see the unsymmetrical count of freckles on his face that he had somehow missed during their kiss earlier, could see the way his own arms were trembling to keep the butterfly knife from filleting him.

“Fine!” He snarled because he had never been good at admitting himself wrong, or that his carefully considered plan could have had such a loophole as this. “Three chances!”

The smiling man-- Patton-- eased just enough that Logan could wedge his fingers under the other’s hold on the knife and bend his thumb back until gravity retook the knife. It fell into a pile of clothes from Logan’s bag: something that had been overturned no less than five minutes prior by, uh, Roman. 

Somewhere beyond Patton, Roman and Virgil were fingerpainting the seats with blood. From his angle, Logan couldn’t tell which was whose: Roman’s arm had been sliced, but a good punch to Virgil’s nose had resounded in a crack sometime between Patton calling Logan “a sore loser” and Logan calling Patton a “myopic milksop” and ended with an impressively bloody nose.

It seemed that rather than facilitate with murdering each other, Patton’s game had only wrought unconcerned chaos to the compartment.

Logan was more annoyed than he had a right to be. His strict order had been unheaved by these unhinged hooligans and Logan found himself rising to the challenge of it: he never liked things to be easy, never liked the ones that didn’t wake up before the flames consumed them, the ones that didn’t scream or cry or pray. He wanted to see Patton do it, wanted to see that plastic expression melt away and reveal that truth of a human from underneath. Patton was a challenge, a puzzle.

Logan had never been one to give up.

"Three chances," Logan repeated when the scuffle beyond them didn’t immediately cease. “Three chances from here on out!”

Virgil slammed against the window, but managed to roll away from the punch that Roman threw at him. Roman's fist slammed the glass window hard enough to send vibrations throughout the small room.

“Fuck!” Roman yelled as he flung his fist open and then waved his fingers losely. His knuckles were strikingly pink compared to the scarlet blood on his bicep. “Ow! Jesus fuck, Twenty eight!”

“One!” Logan snapped. “That’s one for you, Prince!”

“Do last names count? Is that a thing?” Virgil asked, balancing himself in a couch on the seat, much like a cat ready to flee out of the way again. His hoodie swallowed his hands, but Logan didn’t doubt that his hands were full of those little knives that him and his brother were so fond of.  

“Logan’s at one, too!” Patton sang.

“Fine!” Logan hissed. “Last names do not count. Roman and I are at one, Patton and Virgil are at zero.”

The compartment breathed for a full second. Logan could feel the pressure of his clothes on every inch of his chest as he inhaled testily. The rain outside pounded on the windows, a raging thunderstorm that did not deter their train in the slightest. Lightning cracked on a distant hill. 

“Are we done?” Logan asked.

There was a flurry of glares around the room. Well, glares and a condescending, lithe expression from Patton. For an overly tense moment no one seemed to be ready to back down, no one seemed ready to adhere to the rules that they had all so easily agreed to playing.

Then Roman flexed his fingers on the fist that had so elegantly punched the glass window flipped both his palms out for them to see him unarmed. “Truce?” He said, and Logan was certain there were several half syllables that were tacked on the end, the beginnings of a nickname that he cut himself short from saying. Roman took a deep breath, and he let it out with a laugh that dripped with a madness.

“Oh,” Roman said, throwing a deadly little look in Logan's direction. “You’re definitely on my list now.”

“A pleasure,” Logan said, “You’re standing on my shirt.”

Patton picked up one of the other shirts around the floor, along with his little knife, and brought the dark blue fabric to his face. He smelled it, and smiled that ridiculously dreamy smile of his. “It smells like you, Logan!”

“Of course. It’s mine.” Logan snatched it from his hands. “I’d thank you not to touch my stuff at all, Mr--Patton.”

The other let out a teasing little laugh, leaning into Logan’s personal space. Their legs were touching, the warmth of his body making the rest of Logan’s limbs feel rather cold in comparison. “You really are amazing, Logan, for being so broken as you are.”

Logan’s eyes caught sight of the puckered cigarette burn on Patton’s collar bone. He wet his lips, imagining the smoke coming off his body again.

“You’re going to lose my little game,” Patton said fondly, and raised his hand as if touch Logan.

Virgil’s hand snaked out and grabbed his wrist before it could. Virgil didn’t look at either of them, but he sneered at the knife scars in the wooden flooring. 

“Don’t,” He said, but without elaborating on exactly who should have not been doing whatever it happened to be. Wasn’t that curious?

Logan’s eyes watched the brothers' hands, watched as Patton laughed again so carefree and wild and gave a tug that brought Virgil to the floor with him. With a fistful of his pastel sweater sleeve, Patton practiced wiping the blood from Virgil’s chin.

Roman used one of Logan’s iron pressed pants to wipe a smear of blood from seat.

"Must you?"

Roman blinked, "Sorry, uh--" The man snapped his fingers twice frowning, "You?"

Patton laughed again, "Oh dear, did you forget already?"

"Does that count?" Virgil asked. "Is he at two now?"

Roman glared at him, "Oh, shut up, Jason Toddler!"

"That one counts," Logan said. Although Roman wasn't his primary target, he couldn't help that small swell of excitement that came from the increasing number, from the prospect of scorching flames and smokey flesh. "Roman is at two. I am at one, and both of you are at zero."

"Fuck off," Roman said and threw Logan’s pants at him in a very mature show of annoyance. The fact that he didn't tact on another insult however made Logan suspect that he was attempting to learn to hold his tongue.

Interesting. Perhaps cattle could learn to think for themselves.

Roman stretched up to the luggage rack over their heads, his shirt rising ever so dramatically and flashing hints of the toned body underneath all that white. Unmarred and soft and would most likely bubble if Logan got a chance to press the tip of his lighter into his feeble flesh. 

Evidently, he wasn’t alone in the thought process. Patton curled in on himself giggling and peeked through his fingers at the sight in a mockery of modesty, while his brother inhaled so sharply it turned to an audible growl. 

“Like what you see?” The killer at the center of attention smirked, “I don’t mind.”

“I mind,” Virgil snapped, “That’s not even your bag.”

Roman grinned until Logan could see his canines. There was something about his smile, something that didn’t quite look right. It wasn’t fake-- not the way that Patton’s was, but it was  _ practiced _ . 

“Are you afraid of what we might find in your bag?” Roman asked grabbing the handles and giving it a tug.

“I never said it was mine.”

The bag rolled off the rack and  _ thawpped  _ to the ground taking Roman’s arm with it. It hit the ground with a crash, that sounded suspiciously not like any bag of clothes Logan had ever heard before. Something liquid started leaking from the bottom of the bag, pooling on the floor in colorless puddles.

Roman looked up at the twins, and pointed at the bag, “What is that?”

Patton cupped his own cheeks, gasping in that false surprise that made Logan want to press another cigarette to his skin-- maybe even in his neck, and burn straight through the tissues until every breath the man took was accompanied with a whistling noise.

“Roman!” Patton chastised, “I can’t believe you would call my little Kady Kay a “that”! She’s obviously a person! It wouldn’t be fair if I took my brother with me on this fun trip but didn’t bring my favorite patient with me!”

Logan blinked for a moment, staring at the bag, at the liquid coming from it, and suddenly recognizing the ethereal smell coming from it.

“Is that…” He didn’t have to finish because Roman had unzipped the bag to confirm what they both were thinking.

“What the fuck.” Roman whispered, somehow stunned beyond that cocky attitude of his.

“Aw, You broke her,” Patton whined, reaching between the flaps and poking the soggy strips of hair attached to the human head that was not attached to a body. He picked a shard of glass from over the wide open, spiritless blue eyes, and held it up for them to see. “Oh! This one looks like a dog! Look Virgil!”

The ethanol on the floor soaked the bottom of a pile of Logan’s shirts. His brain whispered about Safety Data Sheets he remembered from chemistry class so long ago: a colorless, highly flammable liquid, and Logan’s lighter was only a few feet away. His fingers itched for it. To light the Ethanol, to light the bag, and the head and perfect, peppy, plastic Patton on fire.

“Take a good look, Princey,” Virgil said, leaning over Roman’s shoulder with a nasty little smile, “Because that’s what I’m going to do to you.”

“That’s one for you, VeeVee!” Patton laughed, “And one for me, too!” He looked down at the bag, and curled a strand of hair around his fingers. “I like this game a lot!”

Patton made eye contact with Logan, his eyes shining through those glasses, still crooked on his nose after the fight. He pressed his fingers to the corners of his own mouth, widening his smile even more and leaving glistening dewdrops of ethanol on his cheeks. 

“Thanks for playing with me, Logan!” He said. 

It was ridiculous. For a moment, Logan was convinced he meant it.

But then there was a rap on the train compartment door, and Logan became acutely aware to the absolute chaos that was their appearances: Logan’s neck was a breath away from bleeding again, Vigil was nursing his own bloody nose, while Roman’s arms were in need of bandaging. Not to mention Patton’s sleeves were splattered with blood from wiping it off. 

The compartment, too, was ransacked: the floor covered with bits of Logan’s luggage, and where it wasn’t it was carved up with a knife, blood on the seats, blood on the window, ethanol on the floor and broken glass in a bag knife hole in the seat that they had no hope of covering up at all. Not to mention the  _ human head. _

Thunder rumbled over the sound of the train, the rain fell in sheets.

Logan supposed the easiest thing would have been to stay silent and pretend like none of them were there-- there was a nice little dining car several more cars down that Logan had passed on his way on the train all those hours ago. If no one knew they were there, they wouldn’t have to open the door or explain away the detestable mess the others had created in their carelessness.

However, the easiest thing was clearly not the thing that all the others agreed on. Logan suspected it hadn’t even crossed any of their minds at all.

Patton slid the train door open with his wide grin, “Hello!”

“Patton!” Logan yelped, reaching out to the door to slam it closed before the train attendant on the other side could register anything.

Patton shoved a foot between the sliding door and the gap, and he held it open without looking away from the man in the white uniform. “What can we do for you, sir? Oh, I love your tie!”

“My--? Oh, uh, thank you, sir. I was just coming around to inform you that the train will be making an emergency stop at the next station to wait out the storm. The next distance is too dangerous to attempt while the tracks are wet--I’m sorry, sir, are you bleeding? Your sweater is--”

Patton laughed. 

Logan wondered how many people died with that as the last thing they heard. The poor unfortunate souls who had such an annoying grating sound following them to the afterlife-- Logan pitied them. Just as he pitied the train attendant who never had a chance to finish his thought.

Patton’s hands weaved forward and around and before the man had even noticed, Patton had ensnared him in that blasted clay cutter. His throat sucked for air to scream with, but there was none to be had: Logan would know, he'd just been on the other side of that weapon as well. Panic expelled from the man's body, the wire slicing through the tie that Patton had just complimented. Despite the train attendant being three inches taller than him, Patton twisted his body and leveraged the panicking man into their compartment by his neck like it was no trouble at all.

He landed in a puddle of ethanol, mere inches from the severed head. His blood mixed with the fluids on the floor.

Logan kicked the door closed before anyone else had the time to wander by.

By the time he turned back around, Virgil had gotten the man acquainted with his knife: severing the spinal cord and turning  _ medulla oblongata  _ to pin cushion. The life left the man’s eyes without even a scream, probably not even a thought.

A cold death, cruel and crude and effective. Still Logan thought the flames might have suited him better; white fabrics always looked best singed and dusted with charcoal. 

“Oh great,” Roman said, “A dead body. Which one of you brainiacs are gonna explain away this one?”

Virgil wrenched the knife from the body and pointed it at him, “That’s another nickname! That’s three!”

“I’ll allow it,” Logan interjected stiffly.

“What why?! It’s a clear violation of the rules!”

“Because the question needs an answer.” Logan snarled at him, “I assumed one of the two of you had a single brain cell. However, now I see that I was mistaken!”

Patton pouted, but it didn't reach his eyes. Even his lips quivered at the attempt to break from the mold of his plastic grin. "That's really cold, Logan."

“So was this death, Patton.” Logan’s mouth curls around the name, fitting it between his teeth in just a way that feels foreign. Part of him remains confused over how he could possibly be satisfied with something that was over so quickly, something that was so heartless, productionless, expressionless. The man was dead and there was nothing glorifying about it.

It was a dead body on a train in a compartment that pointed all the fingers to them.

Logan knew that most of the human population was stupid, but it wouldn’t exactly take Einstein himself to work out that something nasty and unpleasant had happened in their train compartment. Someone would go digging and they might discover the strangeness of Logan requesting to be sat in this train car specifically, with his name right next to Patton and Virgil Sanders, who happened to have just withdrawn a large sum of money from his bank…

No, Logan didn’t like the implication that a discovery of the body or the blood could create. He had built himself a lovely little life back in the city, had a nice little promotion, and this very nice paid vacation. He had Jeff from two cubbies over to publicly humiliate again, and an ashtray to send to his sister who would forever remain ignorant of why exactly he got them for her.

He wasn’t about to let two halfwitted hooligans ruin the little world he created.

“Don’t you remember?” Virgil said, sullenly. He pinched his blade between his thumb and index finger and slid them across the flat of the knife. The train attendants blood came away easily, dripping off the hooded man’s fingers and on to the man’s white clothes. “He said there was going to be an emergency stop soon.”

“And?”

Patton laughed.

Virgil glared at the window, “Do I have to spell it out for you? Trains can catch on fire, dumbass.”

“That’s two,” Roman said.

Virgil threw his knife at him, and missed by several inches. Roman still yelped.

“Are you suggesting that I set this train compartment on fire in the middle of a rainstorm?” Logan asked.

A haunting question, a dangerous question. Logan’s lips twitched at the mere suggestion, a slim crack in outward stonewall of a personality, but a crack nonetheless. It was ridiculous what a little iota of fire could do to him. 

Everyone has their vices, though.

“Most definitely not.” Logan said, “I won’t.”

“What, aren’t you an arsonist?” Roman said, and then jabbed a finger the twins, “That’s not name calling. It’s an observation.”

“Of course, I am,” Logan said, folding his fingers under the collar of his shirt, rubbing the tender wound across his own neck, and ruffling the trim of his hair. “What is the point of lighting the room on fire unless one of you are left here to burn in it?”

“Really,” Virgil said. “There’s a dead guy on the floor, right here.”

“Dead bodies don’t scream.”

Patton laughed again. He leaned forward, coming rather close to Logan’s personal bubble. “Do you like to hear them screaming? That’s so bad, Logan! You  _ are  _ broken!”

“I’d like to remind the room that you are the one with the severed head in your bag, Patton.”

Patton reached into the bag and hoisted the head out by the scalp, showering the floor in broken glass and splattering ethanol on Virgil, the train attendant, and the seats. Roman shrieked, dancing back from the scene. Logan found himself in a staring contest with the person he had intended to turn to ashes three days previous before the opportunity was so rudely stolen away from him.

“Look! It’s not in the bag anymore!”

“ _ What the fuck is wrong with you? _ ” Roman yelled, “Put that thing away!”

Virgil snarled, sprouting to his feet and squaring up for a fist fight, “Nothing is wrong with him!”

Roman retook the steps he had retreated until the two of them were chest to chest. “He is  _ dancing  _ with a  _ severed head.  _ Oh my god, what if the brains fall out? Do brains catch on fire?”

“Congrats, you’ve impressed me by being even more of a clueless moron than I thought you could be.” Virgil threw up a hand and shoved the other back. “The brains are in another jar.”

“Yep!” Patton laughed and reached into the bag again to reveal an unbroken glass cylinder, with what Logan assumed was four sections of a brain carefully cut apart and bobbing in the clear liquid.  “Look what happens when I flip it upside down!”

“That’s a third strike for you!” Roman said, “Name calling, Virgil. You lost the game.”

“Let me introduce you to the difference between a proper noun and an adjective, Roman Prince.” Virgil snapped back. “For example: a proper noun is a name that I might hypothetically call you, such a “Pompous Princey”. An adjective is an insult might that I use to describe you, such as “washed up actor who never made it big and never will”.”

Roman’s face screwed up, his eyes hardened, and before any of them could move his strong world crushing hands curled around Virgil’s hoodie and pulled him close. Well, as close as they could be when Virgil tripped over the corpse on the ground. 

Roman had several inches on him; several inches in height and several feet in sudden boiling bloodlust. “Say it again.”

Patton titled his head to the side, his smiling losing the genuine happiness of the moment. “Hey,” He said, “Look.” He flipped the brain jar again, “Bubbles.”

They ignored him.

“You’re a joke, Roman,” Virgil said. “A joke that’s so old it’s not funny anymore. Child star grows up, no longer cute, no longer getting prime time on TV, no longer remem--”

Roman shook him. 

“Stop,” Logan said, although not with much conviction. Part of him was curious: would Roman default to breaking the rules of the game to murder Virgil? Would Patton truly let him? His brain started running the calculations like a silent watcher of a movie.

“--Did I hit a sore spot?” Virgil smirked, the dribbles of the blood from his nose smeared over his top lip still. “You read like a book, Roman. A stupid, easy, dumb-”

Logan was curious to see if Virgil did have any better insults to toss around, but unfortunately before he could the train itself gave a jarring squeal of metal wheels, a shrill whistle sliced through the pattering of rain on the windows. The carriage jolted forward sharply, sending Roman tripping over Virgil who tripped over the train attendant. They both fell over, hitting the seats and Roman’s right leg landing entirely in the bloody ethanol.

Logan grabbed for the door to steady himself while Patton hit the backrest and wrapped his arms around the head to protect it and let the brain jar drop on the seat next to him. The lights overhead swung with the motion of the train, the liquids on the floor sloshed around, a few misplaced knives skidded over the hardwood floor.

In a flash of yellow, Logan caught sight of one of his familiar possessions in the mess: his bottle of lighter fluid that had been stashed under his folded socks. Virgil’s words rang in his ears: reminding Logan how easy it was for Ethanol to go up in flames, almost easier than it was for Butane. With the amount of flammable liquids in the room, Logan was almost giddy: a simple spark could send them all up in those glorious flames. And wouldn’t it be such a sinch to slip out the door while they were busy trying to put out an alcohol fire with what little materials they had and jam the door closed while they were discovering that not even water would put it out. 

The train was losing speed, quickly. Someone would come looking for the train attendant who was neglecting his duties due to an untimely demise. Someone would see the mess they had created in the collision of their four different personalities in such a small place.

Logan could feel his heartbeat in his ears, the thundering pulse that matched the speed of his thoughts. How many times had he flicked his lighter? How many times had he counted the nanoseconds it took the flame to ignite?

It would be over before the others would even know what happened. The game would have one winner: Logan, by default. Because you very well couldn't play the game without other players.

Roman yelled something at Virgil.

Logan wasn’t able to hear it over the roar in his ears, the rush of adrenaline in his veins, the  _ thud  _ of his heart. Whatever noise the others made, it was lost in the static the second Logan’s fingers (the ones that still worked at least) slid his lighter from his pocket and flicked it open.

“LOGAN!”

His lips twisted into something-- the corners pulling,  _ pulling,  _ up, baring his canines for the rest of them to see, there was a smear on his glasses that became apparent the moment his cheeks seemed to lift, but he could see around it enough to catch the expressions of surprise, maybe even worry on the other’s faces.

His thumb rolled over the trigger, hitting the switch that would release the gas bottled up inside and strike the flint to give one of its glorious flames that brought forth an exciting buzz in Logan’s head, in his chest, across his skin--

Something slammed into his stomach. And even if Logan didn’t feel pain-- couldn’t feel pain-- he felt the crushing panic in his lungs when the air was forced from them. His body lurched back, the edge of the sliding compartment door went right between his shoulder blades, like a knife to his back. Logan’s tongue spit out of his mouth along with what little saliva he had. He hit the ground a second later, and the lighter tumbled from his useless stupid fingers at the same time as Virgil’s hand shoved his jaw upwards.

Curious, wasn’t it, that this close to another person, a different person, and the only thing Logan could think was Virgil smelled so much like Patton. 

Logan rolled to the side, up heaving Virgil from on top of him. His knee slammed on the seat, jarring the fluidity of his motions, but the second Logan caught sight of the metal rectangle  on the floor he was scrambling for it.

Virgil’s fingers tore through his hair. He missed the lighter. A pastel-rainbow checkered Van swung through his line of vision and his metal lighter went careening across the floor, bouncing off the train attendant’s limp arm colliding with the seat, and then tumbling right to Roman Prince’s feet.

Patton laughed, stamping his pastel shoes and hugging the severed head close to his face.

“Nice try, Logan!” He said, “But it looks like we’re a step  _ a-head _ !”

Logan felt his breath tear through his throat, tickling that cut on his throat that probably had started bleeding sometime during the tussle. Virgil yanked his hair again and Logan imagined those fingers being burned off, being cut off and cauterizing each bleeding knuckle.

“What’s the matter, Logan? You’re not smiling anymore! You don’t like my puns?” Patton asked, squatting next to Logan’s face. The head banged against Patton’s knee and then hit the ground. “Or you just don’t like me?”

“I find you utterly detestable,” Logan snarled as Virgil yanked his hair at the roots again. His ribs pressed the floor, held in place by Virgil’s surprising amount of weight, his arm pinned to his side in a foolish mistake of his own making. 

Patton laughed to his face, that ridiculously grating noise, that was just a decibel short of causing Logan’s ears to bleed. He booped Logan on the nose.

Behind him, Roman picked up the lighter. “Oh please, you were going to set us on fire with this little thing?”

He twisted it in the air, sniffed it, and shrugged with a cocky type of grin. “Oh look at me! I’m Logan Ackroyd! I kill people in the most boring-est way and play with my lighter when I’m bored-- oh fuck, oh SHIT!”

Logan saw the flame, the spark that seemed to come alive with a whisper of danger, of delight. 

And then he saw it snuff between Roman Prince’s fingers-- those very vulnerable fingers with those very vulnerable three nerves-- and then Logan saw the entire lighter drop to the floor, and spun into a puddle of the bloody ethanol.

Once, when Logan had been in high school, had been all his teachers favorite quiet kid, had been stupidly trusted with the keys to several class rooms, Logan had broken into the chemistry classroom to remove several chemicals he had a better use for than the teachers did. He had spent the weekend in his backyard setting things on fire, timing it, and picturing what the Baseball Team’s Captain’s face would look like burned out and ashy.

None of them had been quite like watching the Ethanol light up.

It was magical: a sizzle, an explosion, the pinpricking all over his skin like a blanket thrown over him, except that it was nothing more than the heat in the room evaporating the liquid. It was dazzling to watch as it leapt from the puddle, out to the splatters, taking a bite of the train attendant and then consuming the canvas duffle bag that Patton had brought with him whole. It cracked like a whip, churning out blackened smoke, and dancing with that ethereal orange glow.

“Logan!”

Roman’s boots landed next to his face, shocking Logan from that trance. It took him only a moment to reset himself, to curse himself for being so easily distracted. The sliding door had been shoved open, the twins already evacuated from the compartment. Patton’s grinning face appeared in the smoke, his bloody pastel sweater, holding the door open, as if he was just stopping by.

“You can’t smile yet, Lolo!” Patton told him, “My game’s barely even started!”

Virgil appeared again, grabbing Patton by his shoulder, “Come on, the train’s stopping.”

Logan scrambled to his feet, his hand twisting around the nearest item: his bag just inches from the fire and glowing with warmth that made his own skin bubble. His other hand found one of his shirts, his turtleneck and pressed it to his face. He dragged it after him as he threw himself out of the room.

Logan took one last look back, a final glance at that dead body overwhelmed with the dancing light and not a single noise coming from those lungs--not even a crackle of the gases in the stomach-- and then shoved the sliding door closed. 

Roman and the twins were already down the hall, close to the end of the train car where the door separating the cars provide an ample amount of room for a slim person to climb the safety fence and slip off the train.

Patton was laughing, _laughing,_ _laughing._

Logan breathed in the smokey smell of his own shirt, blinked the unnecessary tears from his eyes, and was glad to see the train was just beginning to settle into the deserted train station that was only lit up with four and a half night lights. 

He wrapped the bag over his shoulder, stuffed his one shirt in between the unzippered pouch and then swung himself over the edge of the fence. His shoes pushed off the metal bars and he lunged for the station platform with the others.

Virgil had one bag with him, staring up at the flicking light like it had personally offended him. Patton clung to his arm, grinning so widely he might have lit up the entire station by himself. Roman sneered at the ashes on his white shirt, and the searing tiny holes all over his pants-- which Logan was almost upset to see. Surely for someone who had fallen into the ethanol, he might have caught fire a bit better? A bit brighter?

“That was another one,” Logan said, once his breath had returned to a functional state.

“What?” Roman asked bitterly. 

“Patton referred to me as Lolo.” Logan said, “That makes the score currently the rest of you at two. I am at one.”

Patton laughed like it was some type of joke. He moved just enough that Logan realized his other hand was holding something--the severed head. It bobbled in the air. “Looks like the rest of us are just losing our minds! Isn’t that right, Logan?”

Logan did not dignify that with a response. The head’s eyes stared at the distance train that was sure to blast a fire alarm soon. Logan didn’t want to be there when it did. He nodded towards the exit of the platform, where the rain was pounding exuberantly for the hour of the night. Thunder rumbled overhead.

“So,” Roman said, eyeing the rest of them, “What now? We set the rest of the city on fire?”

“Sleep,” Virgil muttered.

Patton gasped excitedly, “Yes! We can have a sleepover! Remember Virgil? A sleepover! Like when we were kids! With us and our new friends! And Kady Kay!” He swung the head up between them.

“A sleepover?” Logan repeated, as if saying it one more time would allow them to hear how ridiculous that sounded. A bunch of grown men sharing a room? Preposterous!

Virgil looked at him with a crooked, broken smile-- something that should have been infested with spiders and cobwebs for all the practice it seemed to have. “Yeah, a sleepover Logan. How else are we gonna make sure you two aren’t gonna run off in the middle of our game?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, at the grocery store: Wow this watermelon is the same weight as the severed head in Patton's bag!
> 
> My dad, two feet away: what
> 
> Me: what


End file.
